Ryzom is now open source

The people behind Ryzom have been hinting for days that something big was on the way, leaving players speculating about what it could be. There were a lot of guesses flying around out there, but it's safe to say nobody saw this coming: Ryzom is now open source.

The introduction of Ryzom Core came this morning, which means that all source code and artistic assets are out there for the world. That's right, you can now create your very own Atys with Ryzom's blessing and completely free of charge. The game itself is still up and running -- this is an addition rather than a replacement, so Ryzom fans can rest assured that their game isn't going anywhere.

This development is certain to leave many wondering how this works, what it means, and of course why the decision was made. The Ryzom team handled as much of that as they could preemptively, setting up a FAQ covering quite a bit of ground. The Free Software Foundation got in on the act as well by further explaining what this means and how it all works.